Friday, June 30, 2017

The Real Reason the Kremlin Will Never Completely Disown the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Paul
Goble

Staunton, June 30 – For Moscow, the
1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols which divided Eastern
Europe between Hitler and Stalin remains far more important than many believe because
it was the first time a major power recognized that the USSR had “legitimate”
interests beyond that country’s borders.

Thus, that accord between the two
totalitarian powers represents for Moscow far more than just an assertion of
its control over the Baltic countries, Moldova and the western portions of
Ukraine and Belarus. It serves as a surety of what Moscow leaders think is
their right to intervene and control other places as well.

That conclusion follows from a
comment by former Soviet spymaster Pavel Sudoplatov in his 1994 book, Special Tasks, that has been picked out
by a Moscow blogger now to explain the course of Russian history in the 20th
century and by implication even in the 21st (users.livejournal.com/vba-/561405.html).

Citing Sudoplatov’s book, the Moscow
blogger, with the screen name of VBA, writes the following:

“The
Molotov-Ribbentrop accord was extremely highly valued by the Soviet leadership
brecause this was the first treaty with the participation of the USSR where one
of the leading world powers (Germany) officially recognized the Soviets having
a right to its own interests beyond its own borders. Nothing similar had
occurred in the entire history of the USSR.”

With the revival
of Stalinism in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, such recognition is if anything even
more important; and consequently, it is extremely unlikely that any Putin
government will ever disavow the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as Mikhail Gorbachev
did in 1989 as much as that might help its image in the West.